by Paula Stokes
“But then after he built you up you just moved on to another guy without even telling him? Out of sight, out of mind, I guess. Don’t you ever think about the people you hurt?”
I sigh. “Without him here, it just became easier for me to face reality. That we weren’t right for each other, that we wanted different things. I wouldn’t have been able to make him happy.”
“Bullshit,” Frannie says. “He loved you. He was going to propose to you. That’s why I . . .” She trails off.
“You what? Followed me? Recorded me? Threatened me? Tried to kill people I love?” I bite back the tears that want to fall. I have to stay focused. I can’t give in to my emotions, not now, not if I want to survive this.
The gun shakes in her hand again. If I can figure out how to distract her, I might be able to tackle her before she can get a shot off. But she’s so close to the edge of the cliff. If I do it wrong, we might both go over the edge.
“That’s why I told him,” she says finally. “And then he died. You took away the most important person in my life. And yeah, that’s why I tried to kill your mom. I would kill every single person you love, if I could. Maybe then you would know how this feels.” Her voice is hot with rage. Tears are streaming down over both cheeks now. “I never should have told him. But you put me in an impossible position.”
“Told him what?” I ask. “About Holden and me?”
She nods. “I saw you and Holden together on the beach one night. I followed you guys to the Sea Cliff and saw you there. Luke was going to come home as a surprise for New Year’s Eve. He wanted to propose. I didn’t want him to get his heart broken, so I told him you were hooking up with another guy, but he didn’t believe me.” She clenches her teeth. “His own sister, and he thought I was confused, or maybe lying. So I followed you again and made him a video. I gave you the chance to post a confession yourself, so Luke could hear it from you, but you didn’t want to do that. So I sent him the video myself.” She kicks at the ground. “We got the call like two days later. He died in a raid. He was supposed to stay back, but he broke protocol, tried to rescue a guy who’d been shot. Insurgent bullets mowed him down before he even made it to the other soldier’s side. His superiors said it was a lapse in judgment, that it could have happened to anyone. His team said that Luke had seemed distracted lately.”
Suddenly more pieces slide into place. Frannie has known Luke was dead for a couple of days. She folded his death into her plan to hurt me when she failed to kill Julia or my mom.
“I don’t understand. Why would your family keep Luke’s death a secret?”
“Like I said, my mom didn’t want it to ruin the holidays for the rest of the town. She said Luke would want us to be strong, to get through Christmas as a family and then tell everyone afterward so the town could mourn.”
A flash of sympathy moves through me. As horrified as I am that Frannie tried to kill my mom and Julia, I can’t help but think about what it’d be like to have to keep such a secret for days. To pretend I was fine while I was secretly devastated. The death of a loved one would be the deepest, darkest piece of all. I bet hiding something like that would break a lot of people.
“You made me complicit in my own brother’s death,” Frannie continues. “I wanted you to feel that pain, the pain of knowing that no matter what choice you made, it was going to end badly, the pain of knowing your actions killed someone.” She brushes at her tears with her free hand. New ones pour forth to replace the ones wiped away.
“Frannie.” I swallow hard. “Let’s talk about this, all right?” I’m still trying to figure out how to get her to put the gun down without either of us getting shot. I understand where her pain is coming from. It’s like I said before—guilt is my superpower.
Frannie wraps both hands around the gun. “Do you know what his last words to me were? They were a one-line email: ‘I wish you hadn’t shown me this.’ Do you know how that feels? I’m always going to wonder if he did it on purpose.”
The idea that some of Luke’s last thoughts were about me and Holden together is like a kick in the stomach, but I shake off the pain. This isn’t about me. “No, Luke wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t kill himself,” I say. “I know what it’s like to feel responsible for all the bad things that happen. But this wasn’t your fault. Luke didn’t rush into enemy fire because he was sad. He probably broke protocol because he’s a medic and he’s trained to save people’s lives. He saw a friend suffering and acted on instinct. You know him, Fran. He wouldn’t think twice about risking his life if it meant saving someone else. Remember how he rescued the mayor’s daughter? That’s the guy he’s always been.”
She doesn’t respond immediately, so I keep talking. “If he was distracted that day, it’s my fault, not yours. I thought I was protecting him, but I was really protecting myself. You did the right thing. Telling the truth is always the right thing to do.”
She shakes her head. “I thought it was. But my mom said I shouldn’t have meddled, that I’m part of why he’s gone.”
“Well, your mom is wrong,” I say firmly. My own mom flashes in my head. I hear her words down on the beach. We figured out how to beat cancer. We can deal with this too, okay? My throat goes tight when I think about how lucky I am to have a mom who is so incredibly supportive, a mom who backs me up even when I don’t deserve it.
“She’s never wrong,” Frannie chokes out.
“She is this time. Look, Frannie, you can still walk away from this. We can both walk away. Julia and my mom are fine. Luke isn’t your fault. You didn’t really hurt anyone. Think about the things you’ve always wanted for your future. Think about what Luke would want. He wouldn’t want you to go to jail.”
She shakes her head. “We have to be punished for the consequences of our actions, intended or not. That’s what my parents always say. We have to take responsibility.” She takes a step backward, toward the edge of the cliff. “But I’m not planning on going to jail. I’m tired, Embry. I want it all to go away. I want to be with my brother again.” She slides her finger onto the trigger. “Last chance. Shoot yourself, or I’ll do it for you.”
“Wait. Hold on.” Maybe I can pretend like I’m going to shoot myself and then lunge for her gun at the last minute. I’m not going to shoot at her—not even to wound. I don’t even know how to use a gun. Chances are I would kill her or miss her completely. “I’m tired too,” I say, slowly stepping sideways, repositioning my body so if I end up knocking Frannie to the ground we won’t go over the side of the cliff. “My whole life has felt like one tragedy after the next. But I brought most of them upon myself, and you’re right—I never thought about the other people I hurt.” Slowly, I lift my gun to the side of my head, rest the barrel on my temple. It’s one of the strangest feelings I’ve ever felt. To be so close to death and yet to want to live so badly. “But if I do this, no one will know the things you’ve done. You can live.”
“I don’t want to live,” she says. “I want to be with Luke.”
“But think about what Luke wants. He would want you to live, right?” I watch Frannie’s body, the flicker of different expressions, the tiny unconscious movements. I can tell she’s thinking about it.
As she opens her mouth to reply, I lunge, doing my best to duck low under her line of fire. My shoulder collides with her stomach. We both end up on the ground.
A gun goes off.
Thirty-Nine
A PAIR OF COPS COME charging around the side of the hotel, their guns drawn. “Drop your weapon!” one of them shouts.
I step back from Frannie, my face frozen in horror. There’s a puddle of red growing on her shirt. “Help her,” I say weakly. “I didn’t mean to . . .”
“I said drop your weapon!”
I realize I still have the gun in my hand. I bend down, put it on the ground. Before I know what’s happening, a cop has his knee in my back. My wrists are being shoved into handcuffs.
I turn my head to the side and catch sight of a familiar pair
of boots hurrying across the grass. “Holden?” I say. “What are you doing here?”
The police stop Holden before he can get near me. “Making sure you’re okay,” he calls to me.
I turn my head the other way. Officer Hutchens is bending down next to Frannie, applying pressure to her wound.
“It was an accident,” I say. “I was trying to get her gun. I didn’t mean to shoot her. I don’t even know how to use a gun. Is she going to be okay?”
“I don’t know,” Hutchens says. “But an ambulance is on the way.”
Frannie curls onto her side. Our eyes meet. I fight the urge to look away. “Just let me die,” she says. “I can’t fix things. I can’t go on like this.”
“Yes, you can,” I say. “What happened to Luke isn’t your fault. You just need help to see that.”
“It feels like my fault.” Her voice cracks.
“I know what that’s like,” I say.
Sirens cut through the night as additional police officers and an ambulance arrive at the Sea Cliff Inn. Officer Hutchens hands off care of Frannie to a paramedic. One of the new officers on the scene is Holden’s mom. She rushes over to him. “What are you doing here? I told you to stay away.”
“You know I never do what I’m told.” Holden turns to me. “Uncuff her, Mom. Embry was just protecting herself.”
Officer Hassler bends down to talk to me. “I can uncuff you, but you’re coming back to the station so we can get a full statement.” She removes the handcuffs and I scramble to my feet. She walks me around to the front of the Sea Cliff where her police car is parked.
Holden and I slide into the back together. I massage my wrists. Second time in a police car today, I think, my eyes peeking through the bars to the front seat.
“Stay put. Both of you,” Office Hassler says.
Holden and I both watch as she walks a few feet across the frozen grass. She calls someone on her cell phone. I try to read her body language. How much trouble am I going to be in? More important, is Frannie going to die?
Officer Hassler tucks her phone into her pocket and turns back to the cruiser, her expression neutral.
“Uh-oh. She looks pissed,” Holden murmurs.
She opens the door and slides into the driver’s seat. “Okay. Seat belts, please. The sheriff said to go ahead and bring you down to the station.”
I buckle my seat belt with trembling fingers. As we pull back onto Puffin Drive, I let out a sharp gasp. Tears trickle from my eyes.
“Are you okay?” Holden asks.
I nod. “Just glad to be getting out of here.”
“Extremely same,” he says. “Holy shit. You about gave me a fucking heart attack, you know that?”
His mom clears her throat. “Language, please.”
“She almost got shot, Mom. I think the swear words are earned in this instance.”
“Perhaps,” his mom says. “Then again, there’s no reason for you to be here, Holden. I could drop you off at home on the way to the station if you like.”
“All right. All right. I’ll shut up.” He curls his fingers around my right hand. “I promised Embry I’d be there for her if she was ever in trouble.”
“Well, from what I’ve heard, you’re both going to be in a world of trouble with respect to the fire you started, but we’ll deal with that mess after we finish dealing with this one.”
The ambulance with Frannie passes us on the way down the hill, its lights flashing.
“What’s going to happen to her?” I ask.
“Not sure,” Holden’s mom says. “Depends on the DA. Does one of those guns belong to you?”
“No, she left one for me next to the porch, wrapped like a present,” I say. “I think her plan was for us to both commit suicide. She blames the two of us for Luke’s death.”
“Her brother died?” Officer Hassler asks.
“That’s how I knew something was up,” Holden says. “When you told me he was killed but Frannie didn’t have specifics, I Googled it. A page from the Department of Defense came up with a listing that showed Lucas O’Riley died a few days ago in Afghanistan. I knew there was no way some local stalker could get to him on the other side of the world. At first I thought Frannie might just have been confused about the timing, like maybe her parents had been trying to keep it a secret from her until after the holidays. But then the pieces started to fall into place. Frannie knew your cell number. She knew Julia had an allergy. She knew your mom walked to work. I didn’t know exactly why she was luring you back to the Sea Cliff, but it made sense she might hate you if she had seen the two of us together.” He reaches up, cradles my face with one hand. “I called my mom the second I got off the phone with you.”
Holden’s mom clears her throat. “Do you know who the guns belong to?”
“One might belong to a girl named Katrina we go to school with,” I say. “Or Frannie might have taken them from her family. I know they own a lot of guns.”
Holden’s mom nods. “You should probably call your mom to meet you at the station. She’ll want to be present for your questioning.”
Holden and I are separated when we get to the police station. The detective handling the sexting email case, Alina Reyes, is the one who interviews me. I show her all the messages I’ve received from Unknown while we wait for my mom to arrive. She shows up a few minutes later, her eyes wide, a fuzzy hat pulled low on her head. She didn’t even take a minute to put on a wig when she heard I was at the police station.
Reyes explains to my mom that I haven’t been charged with anything, but I’m being questioned about my role in the shooting at the Sea Cliff Inn. She asks me why I went there, and when I tell her about the threats she asks me when the first one arrived. She goes back over the stuff Holden’s mom asked, about the guns. She asks me why I didn’t come forward and file a report about being blackmailed, and I tell her how Holden and I started the fire.
Detective Reyes nods. “Frannie O’Riley had a burner cell phone on her. Any texts she sent on previous days were deleted, but the messages sent today were still there. I’m pretty sure when we get the security footage from the community college we’re going to see her on it.”
“So what does that mean for Embry?” my mom asks.
“Well, someone is going to need to take a detailed statement about the Sea Cliff fire, but I’m assuming you’re going to want to talk to a lawyer first and you’re not going to find one on Christmas Eve, so that can wait. I’m not sure where the fire department is in their investigation, but someone will be in contact.”
Mom nods. I can see the light fade from her eyes as she calculates how much that is going to cost.
“You guys can appoint me a public defender, right? If I can’t afford a lawyer?”
“That doesn’t really come into effect unless you’re charged,” Reyes says. “But stop at the desk on your way out. I think they keep a list of free and low-cost legal resources.”
Mom nods.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“I know you are,” she says. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”
We run into Holden and his mom in the parking lot. He rushes over and wraps his arms around me, his hug lifting me a few inches into the air.
His mom hurries behind him. “Holden, I think you two need to spend a little time apart until we get all these legal matters squared away.”
“Mom. Come on, that’s bullshit.” Holden places me back on the ground.
“I agree with Officer Hassler.” My mom rests a hand on my lower back. “Let’s go, Embry.”
“Call me Nadia, please,” Holden’s mom says. “Claire, why don’t you and Embry enjoy your holiday as best you can, and I’ll give you a call in a couple of days after I’ve spoken to Holden’s father and an attorney.”
“Sounds good.” Mom slips Officer Hassler one of her business cards.
Holden cradles my face in his hands. “Fuck Edvard Munch and The Scream. You’re my very favorite face.” He kisses me lightly on the
lips. “I’ll see you soon, I promise.”
Epilogue
BUT HE DOESN’T SEE ME, at least not soon. Holden ends up going to Portland to hang out with his dad for Christmas, and I even end up spending a couple of days with my dad. Turns out he’s divorced now and lives in Eugene, which is still about three hours away, but he also bought a cabin in Netarts, which is just a few miles down the coast. He’s been staying at the Three Rocks Motel for the past week or so while waiting for all the paperwork to go through. That’s why I’ve seen him lurking around town.
Mom shuts the coffee shop until after New Year’s so she and Betsy can come with me to visit him. I even get to talk to my half brothers on the phone. They both live in Pennsylvania. One is a brand-new lawyer and the other is in grad school. They didn’t even know I existed until a few months ago.
Dad—we’ll see if he can keep that title—has a long talk with me on the beach one night while my mom goes to the store for s’mores fixings. As we work on building a fire together, he apologizes about fifteen times in fifteen minutes for the things he did before and after I was born. It reminds me of how I must have sounded apologizing to Julia. So desperate to fix things yet so clueless when it came to how to go about it.
“I get it,” I say, as the kindling finally ignites. “Enough with the apologies. I can’t just forgive seventeen years of hurt all at once. But you can do better, all right? From today onward, do better. Not just for me. For my mom too.”
“I’ll do better,” he says.
Our eyes meet across the fire. His are misty. So are mine. “Good,” I say. “That’s a good start.”
Later, after my mom returns, the two of us exchange presents while my father watches with a smile. She is super-excited about the upgraded web page and pets the lavender fleece like it’s Betsy or something.
“You shouldn’t have, Embry,” she scolds. “This is beautiful, but I don’t need stuff this fancy.”